Research for Global Control Mechanism of Japanese MNEs

本研究的目的是考察日本跨国公司的国际活动及其全球控制机制的结构和功能。由于我们不仅需要正式的企业结构信息，还需要非正式的数据和信息，因此我们进行了实地调查，包括对日本企业海外子公司的国际业务相关人员和外籍人士的采访。许多日本跨国公司依赖于总部或母厂与外国子公司之间的一对一关系，而不是全球控制机制。然而，自20世纪90年代初以来，日本跨国公司无法通过这种公司结构和信息处理方式来战略性地适应管理环境。本研究正是基于这一主题展开的。以下是本研究报告的主要观点。首先，我们将日本跨国公司描述为高绩效运营效率与低绩效盈利能力之间的悖论。这一特点与日本跨国公司的控制机制的特点密切相关，即外派员工比例高、非正式沟通的重要性以及将大部分战略和经营决策权交给母公司的倾向。其次，论述了在日本经济结构转型中，外国直接投资的重要性，它决定了日本跨国公司的经营状况。第三，通过对日本跨国公司在亚洲金融危机中的行为分析，揭示了日本跨国公司的特征和控制机制的实际情况。最后，通过松下电器欧洲业务发展的案例研究，考察了全球控制机制，有限公司，这是一个领先的日本跨国公司。

The purpose of this research is to examine international activities of Japanese Multinationals and the structure and the function of global control mechanism of them. We have executed a field study, including interviews with staff concerned international operations and expatriates of foreign subsidiaries of Japanese companies, since we need informal data and information as well as information of formal corporate structure. Many Japanese Multinationals have relied on one to one relationship between headquarters or mother plants and foreign affiliated companies rather than global control mechanism. Since early 1990s, however, Japanese Multinationals can not correspond the managerial environment strategically by this kind of corporate structures and information processing style. This research is based on this motif. Following is major points of the report of this research. Firstly, we characterize the Japanese Multinationals as the paradox between their high-performance operational efficiency and their low-performance profitability. This characteristics are closely related to the features of control mechanism of Japanese multinationals, that is, high ratio of expatriate employees, significance of informal communication, and their tendency to leave much of the strategic and business decision-making in the hands of the parent companies. Secondly, We discuss the significance of foreign direct investment under structural transformation of Japanese economy, which determine the operation of Japanese Multinationals. Thirdly, we demonstrate the actual conditions of the characteristics and control mechanism of Japanese Multinationals, by examining the behavior of them under Asian economic crisis. Finally, we examine the global control mechanism, through case study of the development of European operations of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd, which is one of the leading Japanese Multinationals.